Sally Kraut: Written by a Female Lieutenant currently working for Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, please read my comment, I’m someone who has worked here for 14 years: I can’t believe I’m commenting because I wrote Eric’s CLICK BAIT articles off a long time ago, but this came up at work (I guess that’s what […]

The “False Narrative” The third anniversary of the 2016 death of Fairfax County, Virginia, firefighter Nicole Mittendorff is just around the corner; it reverberates to this day after her suicide was linked to workplace bullying. Within the Fairfax County, Virginia, Fire and Rescue Department (FRD) and in the firefighter and paramedic union, IAFF Local 2068, […]

What Would We Do to Stop Them? Forbes Magazine recently reported that in 2017 more firefighters committed suicide than were killed in the line of duty, suggesting that the rate is more than ten times that of the general population. The 2016 death of Fairfax County, Virginia, firefighter Nicole Mittendorff reverberates to this day after […]

What Pat Tillman’s Death Teaches Us Pat Tillman was an NFL player who turned down a 3.6 million dollar contract to join the Army, along with his brother Kevin, after the 9/11 attacks. Their father said,  “We were at war and the idea that my kids would allow someone else to fight their battles for them… […]

Bide’n Time International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) president-for-life Harold Schaitberger made a faint ripple of news this week when he urged former Democratic vice-president Joe Biden to run for president in 2020. Biden is fondly recalled for being Barack Obama’s “wingman” and less fondly for never shutting up. Schaitberger’s ardor for Uncle Joe approaches that […]

Safety in the Digital Age Fire/Rescue groups, including the International Association of Fire Fighters, helped to create the investigative arm at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which examines “line-of-duty deaths.” (LODD) The NIOSH/LODD program has been extremely important in the effort to determine the elements related to these casualties. Any LODD […]

Old Dog, New Tricks, Not Anyone who knows Harold Schaitberger at all knows that he is, first and foremost, interested in protecting his own sweet deal. That translates into never taking any action which might disrupt or upset the many folks who have been bought off along the way. Any union member or leader with […]

There’s a meme making the rounds this week marking the anniversary of the decision to imprison American-Japanese and others, after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. The error and hastiness of the decision is decried, perhaps as a pointed reference to Trump’s views towards immigrants. The back story is interesting and noteworthy. Many will know […]

The Miami Four According to the Miami Herald, in 2017 “a group of Miami firefighters working at historic Charles Hadley Park Fire Station 12, thought it would be funny to draw penises on framed family pictures of a co-worker who wasn’t at the station that night.” The coworker was Lieutenant Robert Webster, a black man. […]

Charges Stem from Afghan Incident IAFF Chief of Operations Mathew Golsteyn has been charged with premeditated murder in the killing of an Afghan man in 2011 while he was deployed there. Read more about Golsteyn here. The news of the killing isn’t really news. The Times reports that the Army investigated the killing in 2013 […]